Wednesday, September 30, 2009

FCC Panel: Cyber Security Needs Incentives

With the Federal Communications Commission marching through nearly three-dozen workshops planned to gather information for its national broadband plan, it was only a matter of time before the agency took on cybersecurity.

FCC officials heard suggestions from an array of experts in academic, public and private sectors of the broadband community about how to address security concerns as the agency mulls strategies to spur greater expansion and adoption of broadband networks.

Don Welch, president and CEO of the nonprofit research group Merit Network, told the commission that the incentives for commercial ISPs to justify investments in network security are largely absent from the current broadband market.

"The real difficulty in the commercial world is it's very difficult to point to an ROI," Welch said. "If we're successful, nothing happens."